Canne'nt tell you how Nice it was...

p'tit Nicola in Ben Vautier's house of thought-provoking quotes. Ex: Tous le monde sait que Ben aime toucher les femmes. Ach, les artistes francaises.

Vieux Nice--so beautiful!

Above left: Sarah and Nicola in the Jardins Exotiques, Monaco. Above right: Three art-infused darhlings on their way out the of the Musee d'Art Moderne, Nice.

Left: Showing appreciation for environment artist Christo, who is notorious for wrapping various public monuments. Ex: Pont Neuf, Central Park, German Parliament buildings. He gets around.

Above: a Specialite Nicoise: Socca. Sort of a fried chickpea bread. Yum. Also tried "tourte de blette" a strange and wonderful shortbread layer-ed square with pinenuts, raisens and leafy swiss chard in a sugary sauce...umm.

Nice: market, Promenade des Anglais.

Julie's maman and papa, taking a break from mushroom-hunting for (what else?) a baguette, gruyere and ham, and fresh tangerines from the tree in their front yard

Pay-dirt! The first "sanguin".

close to Gourdon, France. Miles of unexplored mountains, plein de champignons and sangliers, just waiting for me.

So, I'm liking the education system in France. Its like this: for roughly every five weeks of school, we get a week off. None of this business of 12 straight weeks of academia, with no room for play. And its all about the play-time. "Vacences de Toussaint" is the name of this lovely holiday from which I just returned--I only regret that in retribution, Hallowe'en doesn't really exist in France. According to Maude, it came into style for a little while, but no one is really too interested in it anymore. Except a random crowd of guys running down the corridors in my apartment building at midnight on the 31st, sporting black capes and shouting "OUI OUI OUI OUI". Profound. They didn't even share their candy. Anyways. I spent the week in the Sud de France, a terracotta roofed-Mediterranean bordered-hitherto unexplored region of this country which is bit-by-bit stealing parts of my heart. Nicola (evolving into my travel partner extraordinaire--as she so eloquently put it "hey, its been a week of travelling together and we don't want to kill each other yet--woot woot!") and I stayed chez Julie( Nicola's neighbour) et ses parents, which was a really eyepopping insight into French culture. For instance, on the way to her parents home from the train station, Julie, so non-chalently was like "Hey, so my parents and I are going to "ramasse des champignons" tommorow in the mountains, you guys are welcome to join. Yup, thats right, picking mushrooms. I never thought that activity, which until now, I'd only ever read about in Asterix ,was an honest-to goodness reality in modern France. And it is. Sidenote: Another comic book-come-to-life epiphany on the same day: REAL wild boars roam and snuffle the mountains just north of Cannes. How sweet is that! After hearing that, I pretty much expected Obelix to come shuffling out of the underbrush with a "sanglier" swung over his shoulders.

Julie took us on a lovely tour of Nice, which included the AMAZING market, where I almost proposed on the spot to the Italian cannoli-vendor. The pastries were THAT good. Also notable were the bouquets and pots of luscious flowers; the racks of Provence-inspired linens in fresh bright colors; the million and a half Indian silk scarf vendors and the plethora of pungent smells and warm poudery colors of the spice vendors.

During the rainy afternoons we hit up a few art galleries: Musee de Marc Chagall and Museum of Modern Art of Nice--after which I emerged with a soppy, appreciative look on my face. Frigging genius. I still can;t get the colours out of my head. There is something intrinsically special about coming nose-to-nose with paintings that you have spent a considerable portion of your academic carreer studying and writing papers about. The Best: sculptures by Niki de St-Phalle (patchy papier-mache tree); Sketches by my all time favorite environmental artists CHRISTO and Jeanne-Claude and the Cantiques des Cantiques series by Marc Chagall. Chagall smack-on found the perfect color to depict true love: deep profound multifaceted electric rose with rough crimson undertones. Genius.

The rest of the week included: Monaco (ritzy and rather wet but an impressive Jardin Exotique. And BIG yachts. And fast cars); another trip to Nice, in which we enjoyed sunshine along the boardwalk" Promenade des Anglais", explored the chateaux and had yum brushetta in the Vieux ville; a few promenades around vieux Cannes, past the infamous conference centre for the Film Fest, and numerous delicious meals with Patrick, Christine and Julie. Tommorow: school. Good news: six weeks until Christmas vacation and a loong visit from my meilleurs potes Canadiennes...selon Anita : boop boop!!!

Ma vie quotidien en Chambery

Just a few pictures of my everyday life in Chambery...1) A herd..er, gaggle (?) of geese...which just sauntered into the centre of town, while I was having coffee with friend...they were accompanied by a shepherd-esque fellow, dressed entirely in black and a dog, which leapt around barking to keep them in line. Not sure if they were on their way to foie gras...or were just taking a stroll through downtown chambery. 2) Sarah and Nicola enjoying a cheap and yummy lunch--turkish kebabs..mmm! greasy roasted pork and purple cabbage and white sauce on a bready sort of pita. 3) Easily the most creative way yet to wear a black suit that I've seen yet. With pink skin. 4) the fruits of my labour after a morning at the market...fresh pommes de reine, peches, gruyere cheese ( ten times the flavour of the best you've ever had, and then divide the price by three), smoked saucisson avec noix, and finally, some pain speigle--hearty rye bread after weeks of that flitty fluffy french white bread. Not complaining, though. 5) Fontaine des elephants 6) The lovely parc at night...walking home from the cinema 7) liz and nicola showing their appreciation for the massive loaves of bread at the "Foire de Savoie', an agricultural fair in Chambery

a saved-up conglomerate of events and awesomeness

(I apologize: the text and images are in no particular order. From a trip to switerland, about mid-September).
Image no.1 The lovely cliff we (Anita Krebs, Sarah and Brandon Hutchison and I) bravely climbed. Well, it required bravery on my part, as Sarah so eloquently put it, I'm more accustomed to painting the cliffs, rather than climbing them. It actually was technically climbing--its called via ferrata ('iron way'). Difficult concept to explain, but roughly, the climber has a harness and two carabeener clips, one of which is always attached to a cable which runs all the way up the cliff. There are iron footholds all the way up, so its not SO physically taxing to do... the challenge is motivating yourself to continue moving upwards when you are hanging off a rock face that runs STRAIGHT up. The promise of chocolat noir and Anita's encouraging words, like gentle cattle prods were key motivators for me. The other mountains picture and the turtle-head helmets-picture were also from our Via Ferrata day in Leysin, Switzerland.
The cloudy grey city is Geneve. Do I sound unimpressed? Actually, I really did enjoy it, despite the wild downpours. I had travelled with my Canadian friend Elizabeth, my Bermudian friend Nicola and her sister Katie, and we shamelessly spent most of the day eating! Image: 3 happy girls, post cappucinos and lucsious little gateaus chocolats at the AUER Cafe et Chocolatier. Its sort of cool, you sit down and order drinks from the proprietrice and then you just snatch a plate of desserts ...it could be from a table at which is seated a few well-manicured and elegantly coiffed dames; or perhaps from two business-men in the latest victor and rolf spectacles, conducting a pretentious-looking meeting over espresso.
The lusicous Couch (capitalized on purpose). I just love it. Maureen Krebs clearly has a spot-on instinct for design.
Last picture--a yummy aperitif in the Krebs backyard before a truly deliciously memorable meal...what could be nicer than rose and sunshine among friends?

A Lyon

Some photos from a little day-trip to Lyon...what a beautiful ville! Lots of amazing Italian-influenced architecture from the 15th century. Mmm...and more amazing food! I had the most delicious crepe brulee at this restaurant called "La Gone" (see photo of me with cheesily blissful smile).

quelques images...

Some pictures of little details of my new life, and also a day trip our french class took to Annecy, a nearby village on a lac....so beautiful! There are little canals built into the city, we think they,re trying to emulate the romanticism of Venice...and its quite effective! Had a wonderful lunch of crepes...the best Ive ever had! Also Suzi,s lemon and butter concoctions are a close second...:)

>> moi et elizabeth et nos crepes incroyablement delicieux...mmmm!

elizabeth, nicola and sarah à Annecy

<

semaine folle! qui finit avec un peu de fromage...

Whew! Quelle semaine folle! No matter where you move, I think it is challenging to start a new life from scratch...realizing you need everything from a kitchen knife to pillows to housing insurance, groceries, corkscrew, wireless internet...life is complicated! And especially when one is trying to function in a new language...it is the simple, stupid situations, like the pure fact that I cannot adequately apologize in french after tracking dirt onto a poor clerk’s recently mopped floor in a gas station makes me feel like a heel , even before she reamed me out, using insults that I should have recorded and stored in my arsenal, to foist upon those french men who think it amusing to harass young girls to the point of verbal combat. A run on sentence, I know. It was that kind of week.
Having spent my last entry raving about my hot pink pastry, perhaps we will move onto a classic...cheese and wine. Today, the rest of the exchange students and I visited a fromagerie nestled into a little village, in the Montagnes Bruges. This particular factory is know for a particular kind of cheese which they make from a particular recette, handed down by generations and generations. Even the cows used are only from a specific lineage. (I think they might be inbred and perhaps have ended up with inferior brain power which compensates for the superior milk quality, because they were waltzing all over the road as we drove through the mountains to the fromagerie. Some negatives to keeping it all in the family. ) Somehow (through a process which I didn’t truly listen to, as I was slightly distracted by the promise of samples) the milk gets left out, heated up, ferments, and then gets squashed into these little containers with stickers on them. Sounds quite like what happened to my compost in Toronto on a hot day. Anyways, after one week, it grows a special mold which in English, is called “Cat fur”. Which it actually looks and feels like. Yummy. (For any of you who wondered if that lovely little rind on the outside of cheese is actually just an edible wax, think again.) The fur gets “caressed” (also didn’t translate very well into English) and then the cheese goes back into dormancy again. Until the next petting-session. More caressing, which squashes the outer layer of the mold, then back into sleep mode, to grow more fuzz. Ad nauseum for 6 months. The product of this lovely little technique is known as “Tome des Bauges”. The moral of the story? Les francais LOVE being particular. And I think they may frequently confuse inanimate food stuffs with loved ones–no kidding: yesterday I saw a man making love to his cappuccino. But that’s another story.

Premiere Jour

I arrived last night in my beautiful little town, Chambery...I feel it's mine already! I love everything about it...the narrow cobblestone roads, the little boutiques, the beautiful old crumbling buildings... what a dream ! So far, at least. I;m sure school will be fairly challenging, which is where I'm headed tommorow, to move into my residence and to start orientation. My Canadian friend Liz and I are staying a gorgeous little hotel until then... antique wardrobes, deep burgundy and mustard colored walls and sparkling chandeliers....so elegant! I'm obviously very much enthralled in this cloud of architecture, atmosphere and accents...I'm sure reality will hit soon enough, but for now I think I'll just bask in the delirium of exploring this new and incredibly beautiful culture. I had the coolest thing for breakfast from a patisserie: its called a pralinette, and its like a triangular-shaped croissant, with a hot-pink filling. I was expecting a hot-pink flavour, but it was actually just pralines in a sugary sauce. Perfect example of the difference between N-american and european culture: If our pastries in Canada were shockingly pink instead of dull old brown, I think we would be a happier society on the whole! PS: this is the view outside my hotel window...yes, this is when you're entitled to be jealous.